Rock Picks: Rooney, Lili Haydn, Dizzee Rascal

Also, Wolf Parade, Pierced Arrows, Summer Darling

Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Music Critics Wednesday, Jul 16 2008

Dizzee Rascal at the Echoplex

“Let’s take it back to that old-school storytelling shit,” Dizzee Rascal raps in “Sirens,” from last year’s Maths + English, the third record by the U.K.’s premier grime export. Rascal’s story (raised in a contemporary nonfiction version of Oliver Twist; sorting out a new direction for hip-hop on his 2003 debut, Boy in da Corner; winning Britan’s coveted Mercury Prize at 19 years old) has been told over Corner, 2004’s half-hearted Showtime and the excellent, charged Maths + English. Grime, an aggressive pastiche that includes Jamaican dancehall, British garage rock and American rap, only took hold in the U.S. insofar as Dizzee’s moderate, if emblematic stateside success. His pained squawk delivers stories worth the telling, mostly through heightened and artful literalism and a less-cartoonish version of the gangsta-rap tradition, backed by awkward, often grinding, DIY beats that render the music as a bottom-up social broadcast rather than headphone entertainment. (Kate Carraway)

Courtesy Geffen Records

Rooney: We are the world.

Lili Haydn fiddles about.

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Also playing Thursday:

TOKYO POLICE CLUB, AFTERNOONS at the Hammer Museum; YAZ, PSYCHEDELIC FURS at Pacific Amphitheatre; THE HEALTH CLUB at Mr. T’s Bowl; BURNING BRIDES, NEBULA at Safari Sam’s; ANAVAN at the Smell; RIVERBOAT GAMBLERS at the Viper Room.